Snarky or guilty conscience?

[shhh its me]

  I'll add one thingif   friend meant to "show DIL" and if ]friends response was "why whatever do you mean? I was being pleasant I only said the pictures were nice". That's a pretty vicious from of passive aggression.  Its a way of saying " you're oversensitive and overreacting and maybe a little nuts. why would be anger at me for paying you a compliment."  IMHO being constantly this type of PA is abusive, it's a from of gaslighting , you're telling a person their senses are wrong. 

Please note the IFs

I'm not absolving the DIL  intentionally snubbing someone is childish and might even be bullying but it has to be consistent. Leaving someone off a FB collage once is a pretty minor offense. Depends how many collages she was including in over the years. 

[johelenc1]

It was snarky.  Very snarky.  My mother is the queen of snarky comments like that - especially about pictures.  Could it have been deliberate?  Possibly.  But it was more likely an oversight or a case of the DIL and DF just not hanging out when the pictures are being taken.

If DF wants to fix this in the future, just go up and ask, "hey, can you take a picture of me and Son,"  or "hey, how about a family picture of all of us".

[Phoebe]

Hold on. Was that the entire comment? Or was there any preceding conversation regarding the fact that your friend wasn't in any of the pictures? If there was previous conversation, then yeah, it was snarky although maybe not totally unwarranted.

If there was no previous conversation then in order for SIL to find it snarky, she must have been aware of the fact that your friend wasn't in any of the pix which points to her having left her out deliberately. And that would explain why she found the comment to be snarky.

This exactly.  The written word doesn't come across nearly as well as the spoken word.  A lot of people aren't very good at punctuation; the placement of a comma doesn't mean much here.

[Otterpop]

Hold on. Was that the entire comment? Or was there any preceding conversation regarding the fact that your friend wasn't in any of the pictures? If there was previous conversation, then yeah, it was snarky although maybe not totally unwarranted.

If there was no previous conversation then in order for SIL to find it snarky, she must have been aware of the fact that your friend wasn't in any of the pix which points to her having left her out deliberately. And that would explain why she found the comment to be snarky.

This exactly.  The written word doesn't come across nearly as well as the spoken word.  A lot of people aren't very good at punctuation; the placement of a comma doesn't mean much here.

Good catch, missed this post (was wondering why all the discussion about the comma).  If that's the only thing she said, how did DIL know what DF was talking about?

[Minmom3]

I'm assuming that the OP's friend knows pictures were taken of her - group pictures with her included - so she knows there ARE pictures, it's just that those weren't posted on FB.  Knowing that, I'd be hurt too.  It rubs salt in the wound to know that there are pictures that could be posted, but they were not used.

[esposita]

I'm assuming that the OP's friend knows pictures were taken of her - group pictures with her included - so she knows there ARE pictures, it's just that those weren't posted on FB.  Knowing that, I'd be hurt too.  It rubs salt in the wound to know that there are pictures that could be posted, but they were not used.

I agree that I'd be hurt too. But the response should be to open up a dialogue about it, not to make a little comment about "your friends and family. That DF's response to being hurt was to jab and then get offended when her jab was recognized as being ... well, jabby... to me that does not show a MIL who is trying to deepen the relationship or make it better in any way.

[lollylegs]

I'm assuming that the OP's friend knows pictures were taken of her - group pictures with her included - so she knows there ARE pictures, it's just that those weren't posted on FB.  Knowing that, I'd be hurt too.  It rubs salt in the wound to know that there are pictures that could be posted, but they were not used.

I agree that I'd be hurt too. But the response should be to open up a dialogue about it, not to make a little comment about "your friends and family. That DF's response to being hurt was to jab and then get offended when her jab was recognized as being ... well, jabby... to me that does not show a MIL who is trying to deepen the relationship or make it better in any way.

Yes, I think that's what bugs me most about this whole thing. If MIL was genuinely hurt and upset, she should have spoken to DIL in person and in private. Making PA jabs over Facebook seems a bit high school to me. And if a MIL who I'd already had some issues with in the past made those types of statements to me, I'd feel like she wasn't really upset (if she was, she'd talk to me about it) and was just making a fuss for the sake of making a fuss.

I totally understand the urge, though. I've done it in the past. Now I just write them down and don't hit send, get it out of my system without starting a silly online barb war.

[wik31]

I'm assuming that the OP's friend knows pictures were taken of her - group pictures with her included - so she knows there ARE pictures, it's just that those weren't posted on FB.  Knowing that, I'd be hurt too.  It rubs salt in the wound to know that there are pictures that could be posted, but they were not used.

I agree that I'd be hurt too. But the response should be to open up a dialogue about it, not to make a little comment about "your friends and family. That DF's response to being hurt was to jab and then get offended when her jab was recognized as being ... well, jabby... to me that does not show a MIL who is trying to deepen the relationship or make it better in any way.

Pod!  Your friend made a passive-aggressive remark and when called out on her aggression now wants the deniability of her passiveness.  Her DIL wasn't born yesterday and saw the comment for what it was.  Time for your friend to own her feelings and handle them maturely. 

[Allyson]

I do think it was passive aggressive--the statement of "she was hurt, and then posted it" makes it pretty clear that she wasn't just innocently posting "Yay, pictures!" at all. I think, though, that DIL could also have a guilty conscience, depending on her intent. Probably would've been better for her to pretend everything was fine and she didn't notice, though.

Deliberately not posting pictures of one specific person just seems like a weird thing to do. Did she not take any whenever MIL was nearby, or just delete all the ones with her in it..? I don't understand what the point of that woudl even be. I could definitely see a situation though, where DIL isn't a huge fan of MIL, so doesn't go out of her way to snap pics of her, and it turns out that there are none at all.

[Marbles]

DH and I take a lot of pictures. When we post them online, we always make sure that there are no bad pictures of people - no pictures with funny expressions, no blurry pics, no shots of people eating, etc. There are times when it turns out that we end up with no pictures of some people at a party because posting bad/embarassing pictures isn't something we do.

Now, we haven't seen the photo set in the OP, but it's entirely possible that there were no good pictures of MIL for DIL to post. So, what was she to do? Post a bad picture for the sake of inclusion and risk a snarky response from her MIL? Or post no pics and get a snarky comment from her MIL? There's no winning here.

[SeptGurl]

I'm with those who describe DF's comment as PA. I wouldn't go so far as to call it snarky, but it does seem there was a message or intent behind the comment. DF now knows the message was delivered, and it didn't have the outcome she wanted.

I do understand DF's hurt. She feels left out. My read on DIL's reaction is that it seems likely she was aware she didn't post photos of DF. If she weren't aware of it, then there would have been no reason for her to become defensive about DF's comment.

This situation, to me, illustrates the saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right." It seems that DIL may have engaged in some PA behavior by not including photos of DF, and DF's response to that also was PA. The PA behavior between them is sending messages, but it isn't going to resolve their problems.

[CookieChica]

I'm with those who describe DF's comment as PA. I wouldn't go so far as to call it snarky, but it does seem there was a message or intent behind the comment. DF now knows the message was delivered, and it didn't have the outcome she wanted.

I do understand DF's hurt. She feels left out. My read on DIL's reaction is that it seems likely she was aware she didn't post photos of DF. If she weren't aware of it, then there would have been no reason for her to become defensive about DF's comment.

This situation, to me, illustrates the saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right." It seems that DIL may have engaged in some PA behavior by not including photos of DF, and DF's response to that also was PA. The PA behavior between them is sending messages, but it isn't going to resolve their problems.

Exactly this. Neither of them did anything to fix any issues.

[klm75]

DH and I take a lot of pictures. When we post them online, we always make sure that there are no bad pictures of people - no pictures with funny expressions, no blurry pics, no shots of people eating, etc. There are times when it turns out that we end up with no pictures of some people at a party because posting bad/embarassing pictures isn't something we do.

Now, we haven't seen the photo set in the OP, but it's entirely possible that there were no good pictures of MIL for DIL to post. So, what was she to do? Post a bad picture for the sake of inclusion and risk a snarky response from her MIL? Or post no pics and get a snarky comment from her MIL? There's no winning here.

I am the same way with pictures, I may take a 200 picture and only have 70 worth keeping.

I had a difficult relationship with my MIL.  She told family members that she hated me, and was critical to my face, nothing I did was good enough.  It got to a point that everything she said to me seemed critical, I know that she may not have meant things to sound critical, but that is what I heard.

It is possible that the DIL left out all the pictures of her MIL, or had no good ones to post, or just didn't take that many of MIL. 
MIL is hurt, but tries to say something nice and the hurt shows through or their relationship was so bad that the DIL couldn't see it as a nice statement. 
Then DIL goes to her husband, gives an off hand remark about his mom being snarky again and he talks to his mom hoping to fix things or DIL demands that he talk to his mom about her snarky behaviour and the husband talks to his mom hoping to fix things.

All of these show a difficult relationship that does not rest on one comment. 

[baconsmom]

I think your friend was snarky, and I have to ask: Did she click through?

A photo collage on a Facebook feed will not show whole pictures. Ever. I have thumbnails in my photo albums that don't show whole pictures - I know I'm in them, but the sizing features on Facebook mean that unless I click on the actual pic to see the whole thing, I won't be able to see myself.

DIL might think she's being especially snarky if she actually *is* in the pics, and just commented on the feed-sized picture, where she doesn't show up.

[lowspark]

I guess I just don't get what's snarky about "Very nice, pictures of your friends and loved ones" (with or without the comma) if she actually were included in the pictures.